


Ghosts and Surrounding Suburbs

by Busybee



Category: 5 Seconds of Summer (Band)
Genre: Demon AU, M/M, mild NSFW
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-14
Updated: 2019-08-14
Packaged: 2020-08-23 17:22:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,193
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20246506
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Busybee/pseuds/Busybee
Summary: Calum struggles with living in a haunted house, Ashton doesn't believe him, and Luke's just trying to get laid.(Or: my friend sent me a silly comic in the gc, and a mere 12 months later, I wrote something equally silly)





	Ghosts and Surrounding Suburbs

“I think my house is haunted,” Calum says. 

He feels immediately stupid, saying it out loud. Luke’s eyes widen as he lets out a surprised laugh, and Ashton just sighs. 

“For real?” Luke asks, leaning forward across the table. “Like, you think there’s an actual ghost living with you?”

Calum shrugs. “Maybe a ghost. There’s definitely _ something_.”

Ashton rolls his eyes. “Why? Have you been experiencing levitating objects? Billowing curtains? Bloody letters on the wall?”

“No,” Calum says, feeling defensive. He _ knows _ Ashton doesn’t believe in this kind of stuff; he doesn’t know why he even opened his stupid mouth in the first place. “It’s just like, creepy stuff keeps happening. I keep feeling like I can hear things in the kitchen at night, but there’s nobody there. And then stuff just like, gets moved to random places where I didn’t put them. This morning I found my deodorant in the toilet. I _ know _ I didn’t put it there.”

“Spooky,” Luke agrees, nodding somberly. Calum appreciates that he has at least one captivated audience member.

“So you hear some bumps in the night and you’re misplacing your stuff,” Ashton says, waving a dismissive hand. “Big deal. You’re not haunted, Cal, you’re just watching too many weird Netflix shows.”

“I _ am _ haunted!” Calum insists, frustrated. “It’s not just that it’s -,” 

He stops, feeling his face heat up. Luke latches on immediately. 

“It’s _ what_?” he prompts. Calum shakes his head. “_Calum_!” 

“It’s trying to _ seduce _ me!” he blurts out. Luke and Ashton stare at him, their mouths slightly open. Calum stares back. Luke breaks first, bursting into a fit of laughter.

“It’s _ what?!” _ he gasps, tears gathering in the corner of his eyes. Calum glares at him, stone faced. This isn’t funny.

“Calum,” Ashton says, leaning over to put a hand on Calum’s forehead, “are you feeling okay?”

Calum bats him away. “I’m _ fine_. Look, if you’re just going to make fun of me -,”

“No! No, you have to tell us,” Luke insists, trying and failing to compose himself. “What do you mean your ghost is trying to seduce you?”

Calum looks at them both, trying to assess whether he should drop it or not. Luke looks like he could start laughing again at any moment, but also like he genuinely wants to hear it. Even Ashton looks somewhat intrigued. He sighs.

“I can like… _ feel _ it. Like, sometimes when it’s late and I’m in my bed just watching something or whatever, I just feel this… presence with me.” 

“A presence that tries to fuck you?” Luke snorts.

“_No_,” Calum retorts, “it just… tries to hold my hand.”

“Hold your - I’m sorry,” Ashton says, getting up from the table. “This is insane. You can’t have a ghost in your house that tries to hold your _ hand_.”

“What do you do about it?” Luke asks quietly, his mouth hanging open. He looks fascinated.

“I tell it to fuck off,” Calum says awkwardly. “It usually works. But then also like, in the shower, sometimes I get out and there’s like, hearts drawn on the mirror. Or I’ll go to bed and there’s just rose petals, like, everywhere. Sometimes I think -,” Calum chokes for a second, his face flaming, “- sometimes I think it tries to spoon me in the mornings.”

Ashton gawks at him, speechless.

“You - I’m going to get some water.”

He spins around, marching into his kitchen. Calum hears the clink of glasses, the tap running, Ashton fussing with the ice tray. He comes back with three glasses of cold water, setting them down on the table before sitting back down and chugging it in one go. Calum takes a sip without saying anything: he has a feeling that Ashton’s weirdly mad at him, for some reason.

“So… you really have a horny ghost in your house?” Luke says after a minute, breaking the silence. Calum shrugs, playing with the corner of one of Ashton’s coasters.

“I guess so.”

There’s a few beats of silence while Luke seems to consider it. Then - 

“I want to meet it.”

****

It’s fairly common for Luke Hemmings to show up on Calum’s doorstep unannounced whenever he feels like it. He’ll drop by for a beer or to watch a movie if he’s bored, and every once in a while he’ll have the foresight to bring snacks. They’ve been friends for so long that a plan isn’t necessary - it’s almost weird if Luke lets a few days go by _ without _ dropping in.

It _ is _ pretty rare for him to be in Calum’s living room, kneeling on the floor, surrounded by at least twenty unlit candles of various sizes, when Calum comes home from work the next day.

“Lucas,” Calum says, hands on his hips, “what are you doing in my house?”

Luke doesn’t even have the dignity to look ashamed. He glances up briefly.

“I’m contacting your horny ghost,” he says, as if it’s obvious. “Come sit down, I need your help.” 

It’s only then that Calum notices what Luke’s got in his hands.

“A ouija board?”

“It was the best thing I could think of. Help me light these candles so we can get started.”

Calum obliges, lighting candle after candle until his living room looks like something of a fire hazard. In the middle of this culty-looking circle of candles is Luke, kneeling on the floor on the long side of the board, reading a set of instructions. Calum sits down on the other side, gingerly avoiding any open flames. He tries not to think about what’s going to happen if Luke’s brilliant idea sets the sprinklers off. 

“So what now?” he asks.

“Now,” Luke says, placing the instruction sheet down beside him, “we put both hands on the planchette and we ask this spirit to reveal itself.” 

Calum feels somewhat doubtful.

“Luke, this thing does stuff like hide my socks and switch my mouthwash out with hard liquor. I don’t think it’s going to bother with this.”

“Don’t be so boring, Calum. Fingers _ on_.”

Calum sighs, and obeys. 

“Okay,” Luke continues, eyes bright. “Now we have to ask your spirit to join us. So. If there’s _ anyone _ in the room with us today, please make your presence known!”

Luke says it with such an unexpected burst of confidence that Calum finds himself staring at the planchette under his two pointer fingers, waiting for it to move. 

Nothing happens. The effect wears off pretty quickly.

“See?” Calum says dully. “He’s not going to play this stupid game.” 

“Who says it’s a he?” Luke says, completely undeterred. “It’s okay, sometimes they need some time to warm up. We ask again!” And then, louder: “_Is there anyone here today who would like to make their presence known?” _

“What do you mean, ‘they need some time to warm up’?” Calum asks, starting to get annoyed. He takes his hands off the board. “Did you research this at all?” 

“I read a WikiHow,” Luke says, and then takes a deep breath. “_We would like to request that the spirit that resides in the home of Calum Thomas Hood _ -,”

“- this is stupid -,”

“_\- reveals itself to us -,” _

“- Luke, stop it -,” 

“_\- and especially me, because I haven’t gotten laid in weeks and Calum says you fuck -,” _

“- _ Luke!_” 

Luke snatches his hands back from the board as if it burned him.

“Did you do that?” he demands. For the first time, there’s an edge of fear in his voice.

“Do what?” Calum asks, but before Luke can reply, he gets his answer. The planchette, without either of them touching it, starts moving across the board.

“Holy shit,” Luke breathes, but Calum hardly hears him. He stares at the indicator, heart pounding in his throat, and watches as it moves across the letters: S… U… P… 

“‘Sup,’” Calum reads faintly. He feels like he might pass out.

“'_Sup? _ ” Luke repeats incredulously. “You’re dead and you’re contacting the living and all you can say is ‘_sup_’?”

“Shut _ up_,” Calum hisses. The planchette is moving again. H… E… Y… C… A… 

“‘Hey, Calum,’” Luke reads. He looks up at Calum’s face. “It knows you!” 

“Great,” Calum croaks. Around them, the candles have started to flicker agitatedly, like there’s a strong breeze going through the room. Calum might be sick.

Luke, on the other hand, seems to have gotten his enthusiasm back.

“Who are you?” he asks, directing the question at the board, like that’s the entity he’s talking to. “Who are you the ghost of?”

_ N… O… T… G… H… O… S… T. _

“Poltergeist?” Luke persists. Maybe he has done some research after all.

The planchette circles the word _ NO_. Calum starts to feel cold.

“What, then?” he asks out loud, his voice cracking a little.

“What’s your name?” Luke interrupts.

_ M… I… C… H… A… E… L_.

“Michael?” Luke repeats, sounding amused. Calum couldn’t think of anything less funny than what’s currently happening. “You have a horny ghost called Michael, Calum.”

“Don’t antagonize him!” Calum hisses. The planchette is already on the move again, spelling out the same thing as before:

_ N… O… T… G… H… O… S… T. _

“Oh, right,” Luke admonishes himself, his tone only slightly mocking. “Sorry. What are you then?”

The indicator moves so fast across the five letters that Calum only just has time to read what it spells, before both the board and the planchette go hurtling across the room, like somebody took a swinging kick at it. They both hit the opposite wall with a loud smack, and with a sound like a whip-crack, all the candles go out.

Calum sits stock-still in the semi darkness of his living room, his blood hammering in his ears, surrounded by the smell of candle wicks, the last word flashing in his brain: 

_ D… E… M… O… N_.

****

“Well,” Luke says, getting up to turn on the regular lights. “_That _ was dramatic.”

Calum blinks up at him.

“_Dramatic?_” he repeats. He struggles to his feet, legs moving like jelly. “Luke, I have a _ demon _ in my _ house!_” 

“He’s probably still here, you know,” Luke says, looking around like some horned, many-headed beast is going to suddenly appear. Calum hopes it does. 

So it kills Luke.

“You contacted a _ demon! _ In my _ house!_” Calum yells. “Luke, I could be in serious danger!”

Luke snorts.

“Oh, relax, Calum,” he says dismissively. “If Michael wanted to hurt you he’d have done it ages ago. He’s a benevolent demon, probably. Do you think he’s going to show himself to you soon? If he does, you _ have _ to tell me what he looks like.”

“There’s no such _ thing _ as a benevolent demon!” Calum’s not yelling. He’s not. He’s just _ scared_. “I’m moving. I’m getting my stuff and I’m fucking staying with Ashton, _ you _ can sleep here if you like my fucking demon so much. Get out of my way,” he adds, pushing past Luke with a little more force than necessary. Luke follows him into his bedroom, rubbing his shoulder.

“Calum, I think you’re being a little dramatic,” Luke says, while Calum tears through his bedroom, throwing a change of clothes and some toiletries into a duffel bag.

“_I'm_being dramatic??” Calum laughs, a little hysterically. “Sorry, I thought the demon that threw a _ ouija board _ across my living room was being dramatic. Wow, Luke, I’m so glad you’re here to be the reasonable voice in the face of all this drama in the house.”

“I just mean that -,” 

“My life is _ Paranormal Activity, _ Luke!” Even Calum can’t deny that he’s shouting now. “Do you know what happens at the end of that movie?? They _ die_. I’m going to die because _ you _ decided it was fine to just… meddle in something when nobody asked you to!”

Luke falls silent at that, hurt. Calum knows it, too. He’s all too familiar with that look on Luke’s face, the sad puppy-dog eyes turned to the floor and the defensive way he’s crossed his arms across his chest.

He decides he doesn’t care. If Luke doesn’t want him to be mad, he can apologize for putting his life at risk and personally perform an exorcism on his house while he’s staying at Ashton’s, where he will be safe.

Unfortunately, as it turns out, Ashton is less understanding of Calum’s predicament than he would have hoped.

“You’re kidding me, Calum,” he says through the phone, voice crackling a little like he’s going through a tunnel. “You want to stay at my place for an indefinite amount of time because you’ve convinced yourself you have a demon in your house?” 

“I _ have _ a demon in my house!” Calum insists. “It talked to us through a ouija board!”

“Sure it did,” Ashton says. “Look, Cal, why don’t you go to bed and try to sleep off whatever you smoked. I’ll swing by and check up on you in like half an hour, yeah?”

“I’m not high, Ashton,” Calum says, frustrated. Luke thinks it’s funny and Ashton just flat out doesn’t believe him. Why are none of his friends reacting normally to this? “Can I just stay at your house? Please?” 

Ashton hesitates for a moment.

“I’m close to your neighbourhood,” he says eventually, his voice soft like he’s talking to a scared child. “Would it make you feel better if I stayed over? It might calm you down to be around someone else.”

Calum sighs, defeated.

“Yeah, okay. Thanks.” It’s better than nothing. This way, at least, he’ll be dragged to hell with a companion. _ Then _ Luke will be sorry.

“Okay. I’ll see you in a bit. Drink some water!”

“I’m _ not _ high!” Calum yells, but the line’s already gone dead.

“Bit too logical, that one, isn’t he?”

Calum almost screams. He spins around with a yelp, eyes darting around the room to find the speaker.

“Over here,” says the voice from beside him, and Calum does scream, leaping away and tripping over his coffee table in the process.

“Woah, calm down, Calum, it’s just me,” the stranger calls out. From the ground, Calum stops trying to scramble backwards and blinks up at this guy who’s suddenly appeared in his living room. He’s tall and, from what Calum can see under the black snapback he’s wearing, blonde.

“Who the hell is ‘just me’?” Calum snaps, heart pounding. He tries to look around in his peripheral for anything he could reach as a potential weapon.

“Honestly, you live with a guy for four months and he doesn’t even recognize you,” the stranger sighs. Calum stares, not understanding.

“Live… with - _ you_,” he gasps suddenly. “_You’re _ the demon in my house!?”

“I have a _ name_, you know,” Michael grumbles, looking surly. “But whatever, yeah. It’s me. I'm Michael. Big reveal.”

Calum stares.

“What? Did I leave my eyes black, or something? Stop _ staring_, dude,” Michael says, turning away. He catches sight of himself in the hallway mirror. “Actually, I don’t blame you. This is a pretty dope form. Stare away, Calum Thomas.”

Michael starts admiring himself in the mirror, twisting around to try to look at himself from behind, pointing his foot out in front of him. Calum swallows hard, trying to get his head together enough to form a sentence.

“Are you going to kill me?” he manages, his voice mouse-small. What a way to go: killed in his own house by a narcissistic demon. At least it’ll be a cool obituary, he thinks. If they ever find his mangled and charred body.

Michael stops staring at himself and looks down at Calum instead.

“Kill you?” he repeats, his brow furrowing. “Why would I kill you?”

“Because…” Calum starts, suddenly unable to speak properly. “Cus I’m…. you’re, like. A. You know -,” 

“Oh, dude,” Michael pooh-poohs, waving the idea away. “Please. Have you murdered anybody recently? Tortured any small animals, that kind of thing?” 

Calum shakes his head dumbly. He can feel himself trembling.

“Exactly, ‘cus you’re a good guy, right? I mean, I know your parking is like, questionable, and you do that thing some nights where you just mouthwash instead of brush -,” 

“Oh, God,” says Calum weakly. 

“ - but overall? No reason to kill you.”

Michael pats Calum amicably on the head. Calum winces at the touch.

“So… So then why are you here? Why me?”

Michael seems to consider it for a moment.

“Not sure, really. I finished the last job I had and just kind of. Needed a hobby, you know?”

He’s wandering around the room as he talks, picking up one of the cactuses Calum keeps on the windowsill and inspecting it.

“A hobby?” Calum repeats. He’s getting more confused by the minute. Maybe he _ is _ high.

“Yeah, you know. Holiday with the humans, kind of thing.” Michael puts the cactus back down and turns back to Calum, nodding towards where he’s still sitting on the floor where he fell. “You should get up and let your friend in.”

Before Calum can say anything, his doorbell rings,and he automatically takes his eyes off Michael to look towards the door. When he looks back to where he was standing, Michael’s gone.

Calum sits for a moment, trying to process what just happened. Then the doorbell rings again, accompanied by a series of impatient-sounding knocks, so he pushes himself onto his jelly-like legs and wobbles to the door.

“Wow, man, you look like shit,” Ashton greets him. Instead of like, hello, or something.

“Ashton,” Calum says hollowly. He doesn’t know how to explain what he just experienced. Ashton pushes past him, shutting the door. 

“You okay, Cal?”

“Ashton, I… I just saw him,” Calum says. Ashton blinks at him.

“You saw who, Calum?” he asks slowly.

“The.. the demon. Michael. He appeared to me, and… talked to me.”

Ashton just looks at him, his face twisting into a confused sort of concern. 

“O-kay,” he says carefully, like he thinks Calum might be on the verge of a breakdown. Which, honestly, maybe he is. “Let’s get something sugary in you, yeah? And some water, come on.”

He takes Calum by the hand and starts leading him towards the kitchen.

“Ashton, I swear, he was here. He’s probably _ still _ here, just like, invisible.” Calum tries to sound like he’s confident, like his voice isn’t shaking. Judging by Ashton’s reaction, he’s not succeeding.

“I don’t think he’s here anymore, Calum,” Ashton says patiently. He sits Calum firmly down at the breakfast island and pours him some water. “Here, drink this.”

“Ashton, I’m not making this up,” Calum persists, ignoring the water. “There’s a demon in my house, he talked to me and Luke earlier through the ouija board and then threw it against the wall, and then he was _ here_, and he scared the shit out of me -,” 

“ - Calum,” Ashton interrupts, but Calum ignores that, too.

“ - and he talked to me, said I was his - his hobby or something, and he - look, I’ll prove it to you, all right? Michael!” he calls, addressing the room in general. “Michael, can you please appear again and show Ashton I’m not going crazy?”

There’s a pause while both of them wait for something to happen. Nothing does. Ashton visibly relaxes.

“You see, Calum?” he says. “Nobody there, right? Come here.”

He pulls Calum into a tight hug, and despite how frustrated he is, Calum feels himself relaxing into it. Ashton rocks him gently, like he’s a baby, and in spite of himself, Calum feels suddenly, overwhelmingly tired.

“You’re okay, Calum. It’s just me, you’re safe, okay?”

“He was _ here_,” Calum insists, but it’s more of a whine, muffled into the arm of Ashton’s sweater. Ashton pats his hair.

“Of course he was,” Ashton agrees, “but he’s gone now, yeah? So let’s have some Oreos and go to bed, and you can sleep this off.”

Calum almost contradicts him again, but feels so heavily sleepy that he decides it’s not worth the bother. Maybe he _ did _ imagine it all: maybe it was just a weird dream he had after falling asleep on the floor, for some reason. He determinedly tries to convince himself of it while he eats the cookies Ashton puts down in front of him. Ashton firmly changes the subject, and within half an hour, Calum drops his head onto his pillow and falls asleep.

****

He wakes with a start, a heavy weight on his legs, and a face inches from his own. Before he can even open his mouth to scream, a hand is clamped down over it, muffling any noise he could make. 

“Shut up, man, it’s me,” Michael hisses. Calum whimpers behind the palm over his mouth. “I’ll let you talk if you don’t wake him up, okay?”

He jerks his head towards where Ashton is sleeping on the other side of the bed, blissfully unaware. Calum nods.

“Okay,” Michael whispers, and takes his hand away. “Listen, I just remembered something I was going to ask you earlier: who’s that blonde guy you were with? The tall one with the blue eyes?” 

Calum stares at him.

“I’m - what?” he whispers back. “Are you talking about Luke?”

“_Luke _ ,” Michael says, smacking himself on the forehead. “_That _ was his name. Wow, your memory starts going once you’re as old as the Earth. Listen, is he like, a close friend of yours, or…?"

Calum can’t answer. He isn’t entirely sure what he’s hearing. Michael goes on anyway.

“I’m just asking, because, like, I know you guys had a fight after we talked, but I was wondering if that was a _ couples _ fight or if you’d, I don’t know, broken friends or something. Like, is he going to come over again?”

“Are you - do you have a _ crush _ on _ Luke_?” Calum yelps incredulously.

“Not so _ loud_,” Michael hisses. They both look over at Ashton, who stirs a bit. When he doesn’t move again, Michael turns back to Calum.

“It’s not a _ crush_,” he says in an affronted whisper. “I’m like, four billion years old. I don’t _ get _ crushes. I’m just saying, he seemed like he might be down to clown, or whatever.”

“Just to clarify,” Calum says, “you’re asking if my best friend would be down to fuck a demon.”

“I mean. Yeah,” Michael shrugs, like it’s no big deal. “You think he would?”

Calum looks over at the clock on his nightstand. It’s just past three in the morning. By every sense of the phrase, Calum cannot handle this.

“You know what,” he says drily, “why don’t you ask him yourself? Go haunt his place.”

“I _ can’t_.”

“Why not?”

“That’s so_ lame_. Like, how fucking desperate would that be? ‘Oh, hey man, let me just slam these cupboard doors to get your attention and hope you’re into my demonic dick.’ Get real, Calum,” Michael huffs, sitting back on his haunches. Calum’s legs are starting to go numb.

“You do that with me,” he points out. “And while we’re at it, can you stop that shit? I still can’t find half my underwear.”

“I burned them,” Michael says dismissively. “You need some new boxers, dude. Go to Walmart or something. So is Luke going to come over again?”

“You can’t just burn my stuff!” 

“Where’s your phone? Go text him right now, say you’re sorry and he should come over again. Say you’re having another seance or whatever that cute shit was you did today, except you should totally summon me. I like Doritos and that Fortnite game you play -,”

“- _ you’re _ the one who’s been changing my high scores?” 

“- it’ll be cool,” Michael goes on, completely ignoring Calum. “And then I’ll appear in a really awesome way and impress him and it’ll be great ‘cus you can introduce us!” 

“I am _ not _ doing that.” 

“Dope, it’s a date. Anyway, I’ll let you go back to sleep now, kiddo. Good talk.” 

“_Michael_,” Calum hisses furiously, but Michael’s already gone, disappeared with a quiet _ snap_. Ashton stirs beside him. 

“Who are you talking to?” he mumbles, blinking up at him.

“Michael,” Calum says, not bothering to lie. He’s still fuming. Ashton scrunches his nose.

“Oh,” he says. Then he takes Calum’s wrist and tugs. “Come back to sleep.”

Calum lets Ashton pull him down into a little spoon, not protesting when he feels Ashton press a sleepy kiss to his shoulder.

“He’s just so fucking _ rude_,” he complains. 

“Shh,” Ashton shushes, clumsily patting his arm. “Sleep it off.”

So Calum does, irritatedly drifting to sleep with Ashton snoring softly in his ear.

****

Ashton leaves the next morning, well-rested and happy, reaffirmed in his own beliefs that Calum’s life is normal and unhaunted.

“You see?” he says brightly, on his way out of the door. “Nothing happened! You’re fine, Cal. Go outside today, it’s gorgeous out.” 

Calum promises he will, fingers mentally crossed.

The moment he shuts the door, a massive crash sounds from his kitchen. When he runs over to see what’s happening, he finds half of his plates in pieces on the floor, and Michael leaning against the counter with an open bag of Doritos.

“Sorry,” Michael says, presumably in response to Calum’s thunderous face. “I was looking for snacks and knocked some stuff over. Butterfingers, am I right?” 

“Are you going to clean this up?” Calum asks tensely. Michael shrugs, an amused glint in his eye.

“Are you gonna make me?” he asks back, sucking Dorito dust off one of his fingers.

“_You’re _ the one who broke them!” Calum doesn’t appreciate how often he loses his temper in Michael’s presence. “You’re not going to break my stuff and then leave _ me _ to clean it up!”

“Oh, forget it,” Michael sighs, exasperated. Calum opens his mouth to say something, but before he can, Michael disappears.

He appears at Calum’s shoulder a second later, making him jump.

“Stop _ doing _that!” Calum bursts out, rubbing his elbow where he’d smacked it into the side of his island counter.

“You’re not so great at this whole playful banter thing, you know,” Michael says. He eyes the broken shards of porcelain on the floor. “I guess I’ll do this one for you. But for future reference, if I say, ‘make me,’ I’m hitting on you. Chip?”

He holds out the half-empty bag.

“What do you mean, you’re hitting on me?” Calum asks, ignoring the Doritos.

“It means exactly what I’m saying,” Michael says. “The plates were an accident, though, honestly. I’m not gonna go so far as to break your stuff to get your attention.”

“Ha ha,” Calum says sarcastically, rolling his eyes. “You won’t break my stuff, you’ll just hide it, right? You got my attention when you fucking materialized out of nowhere in my living room. Why do you want it so bad, anyway? What do you want?”

“Nothing, really,” Michael shrugs. “It’s just kind of nice, being your roommate.” 

“We’re not roommates,” Calum snaps. “You’re haunting me. And those are _ mine_,” he adds, snatching the Doritos out of Michael’s hands. Michael just grins, flashing canines that are just a little sharper than they should be.

“We’re totally roommates. You just need some time to get used to it,” he says. “Don’t forget to invite Luke over!” 

And he’s gone. Calum’s left alone in his kitchen with a mostly-empty bag of Doritos, and some very confused feelings. The concept of Michael staying in his life irritates him - but doesn’t scare him like it did yesterday. It can’t be real that he has to spend the rest of his life with Michael wreaking havoc every five minutes. Speaking of -

Calum turns around, expecting to see the broken dishes that had been there moments before.

He finds the floor perfectly clean.

“I’m still not gonna let you fuck Luke,” he says out loud. His voice sounds a little echoey in the empty kitchen. He gets no response. Of course.

*****

In the week that follows, Calum spends more or less all of his time being constantly on guard.

Ever since his first big reveal, Michael has been insufferable. He shows up sporadically, when Calum’s in the shower, or reading, or writing music - he’ll appear with a quiet _ snap_, like someone popping bubble wrap, and badger Calum for his attention until he gives in and plays a game of Fortnite, or orders Chinese, or watches some movie.

Michael is very into horror. Calum is not. 

It’s been a great source of conflict, recently.

“Calum, come _ on_. I’ll let you cuddle in when you pretend to be scared,” Michael says, patting the mattress beside him and waggling his eyebrows suggestively.

“I don’t want to watch _ Insidious, _Michael,” Calum says, ignoring the invite. “Can we watch something that’s not possession horror? Like, literally anything?” 

“_I__nsidious _ isn’t even scary!” Michael insists, sitting up. He bats Calum’s hands away from his laptop and clicks the movie, putting it in full screen. “They get it all wrong, nobody does possession like that unless they’re going seriously retro. It’s comedic gold, I promise.”

The introductory music starts. Calum grabs a pillow and hugs it, dipping his head down so he can only just see over the edge of it.

“You always get to pick the movie,” he grumbles.

“Shush, it’s starting,” Michael says, nudging over and settling with his head on Calum’s shoulder.

“I don’t like horror movies,” Calum says, already wincing at the opening credits. “Did it ever occur to you that I might have other things to do? Can’t you just watch this on your own?”

“What’s the point of having a roommate-slash-best-friend if he makes you watch movies on your own?” Michael asks. “You can pick the next one,” he adds. “So long as it’s not some super boring Earth documentary, or something. I don’t need to be told how the earth was created. I was _ there_.” 

Calum has given up saying anything when Michael calls their relationship _ best friends_. His pointing out that best friends aren’t typically demons who appear at will and do what they want falls on deaf ears, anyway.

It’s not so bad, actually, he thinks. Michael is curled up at his side, eating snacks he probably stole from Calum’s secret stash. It’s almost kind of nice to have the company, even if he didn’t ask for it. He goes so far as to think he could almost imagine himself missing Michael’s presence if he ever left.

*****

A few hours later, he changes his mind.

“Michael, I am _ sleeping_.”

“I’m _ bored_,” Michael whines, burrowing into Calum’s bed. He moves the covers and Calum feels some of the warmth escape into the open air. He’s gotten used to Michael being there when he wakes up in the morning - pulling him into a cuddle, or watching something on Calum’s laptop, or just staring at him in a way that is, Calum’s sure, intentionally creepy. He usually seems to understand the line of _ don’t wake people up _, but, Calum supposes, that golden reign is out the window now.

“So?” Calum says. He lets himself be moved around, too groggy to really put up a fight when Michael turns him onto his back. “Why is that my problem? Also, what are you doing?”

“Wanna bang?”

Michael asks it so casually, loose hair hanging over his forehead, his face half in shadow from the dark room. It’s quiet for a beat. He seems so sincere that Calum almost misses the joke, his stomach giving a little twist.

“Now?” he asks lightly, catching on. “It’s the middle of the night, Mike. Ask me in the morning.”

“Is it because of the whole demon thing? Because I swear, you won’t be able to tell.”

“It’s because you’re being stupid and I’m tired,” Calum says, and as if on cue, he yawns. He turns away, onto his stomach. Michael lets him. Calum continues, speaking into his pillow. “Stop messing around, Michael.”

The bed jostles a little, and then there’s a warm pressure and a sharp, stinging pain on Calum’s shoulder.

“_Ow_,” he yelps, whipping around. Michael looks down at him, a mischievous little grin on his face. “Did you just _ bite _ me?”

“Are you awake enough now?” Michael asks, pressing a soft kiss to the same spot.

“I swear to God, Michael, if you bite me and I turn into something like you -,” 

“Hey!” Michael interrupts, looking genuinely offended. “That’s werewolves.”

“Well,” Calum huffs, a little embarrassed. “Stop it. It’s like four in the morning.” 

“Exactly!” Michael goes in again, and Calum tenses up in case he gets another bite. Instead, Michael just softly nuzzles into the nape of his neck, nosing at his spine. It feels really nice, to be honest. “It’s the perfect time for a seduction.”

“If you want to seduce me, bring me coffee and a bagel in bed tomorrow,” Calum mumbles, relaxing back into the softness of his mattress. “Stop nibbling me. I’m sleeping.”

“Can we cuddle?”

Calum doesn’t know how he got landed with this.

“Yeah, whatever,” he grunts. Michael’s progressed to running a soothing hand up and down his back, and it’s dangerously close to lulling him back to sleep. Michael makes an appreciative noise and curls in, cuddling up against Calum’s back as close as he can. He’s warm - too warm, unnaturally warm. It’s a good contrast to how cold the room is. Calum knows Michael doesn’t sleep, and he’ll probably disappear again in a little while to go do whatever he does when he’s not being a nuisance, but it’s nice to have another body in the bed.

As he expected, Michael is gone by the time Calum’s alarm goes off. He lies there for a while, staring at the rays of light cast on the ceiling through his window. It’s not until he sits up and stretches that he notices it: on his nightstand, right between his alarm clock and his lamp, is a toasted bagel with cream cheese, and a freshly-brewed cup of coffee. Stuck to the cup is a blue post-it, and written on it, in what Calum can only assume is Michael’s sprawling handwriting, is a note:

_ Now can we bang? _

Calum takes a sip of the coffee, and calls Luke.

*****

“So it’s for real? Your demon is hard up for it?”

They’re out. Calum doesn’t know if Michael can leave the house - for all he knows, Michael’s here right this minute, invisible and eavesdropping - but he didn’t want to risk being overheard in his kitchen. Luke suggested brunch, Calum likes brunch, so: they’re having brunch.

“Yeah, it’s for real,” Calum sighs. He stabs moodily at some scrambled eggs. “He made me breakfast this morning.”

“He _ what_?”

“I know,” Calum says. Luke gawks. 

“And you didn’t even -?”

“No!”

“Wow,” Luke says. He takes a sip of his mimosa, then swirls it thoughtfully. “I’ve had whole week-long stands that didn’t even leave me their number. How are you doing this?” 

“I’m not doing anything!” Calum says, exasperated. He’s tired of this. He never asked to host a horny demon in his home.

“Do you think it’s you, specifically? Or is he just in general up for it?”

Calum narrows his eyes at Luke suspiciously. Luke looks innocent enough, mimosa still in one hand, curls falling over his earnest eyes - which are just a bit _ too _ earnest to be completely believable.

“I don’t think it’s me, specifically,” he says, slowly. He knows where this is going.

“Huh,” Luke says. “Interesting.”

He takes a bite of melon.

“Is he hot?” he asks through a mouthful.

“Michael?”

“Yeah. Is he?”

Calum shrugs.

“I guess so.”

“You _ guess _ so?” Luke repeats, looking offended. “It’s a yes or no question.” 

“Fine,” Calum snaps. “Yes, the demon who haunts my house is hot. Sorry for finding that weird to say.”

“Interesting,” Luke says again. He picks up a piece of bacon and chews it absently. When he doesn’t say anything else, Calum starts to get concerned.

“Luke, please don’t -,”

“I’m gonna fuck your demon,” Luke interrupts. Calum drops his forehead to the table. The wood is cool and soothing on his skin. He can become one with it, if he really tries.

“Please don’t fuck my demon,” he says to the floor.

“I’m gonna fuck your demon,” Luke repeats firmly. Calum shuts his eyes. Maybe, he thinks, this is all some stupid, ridiculous nightmare.

“I’ll tell Ashton on you,” Calum says, snapping his head back up. Luke rolls his eyes.

“Please,” he scoffs. “Ashton doesn’t believe it. He’ll think it’s some elaborate weird joke. He _ already _ thinks that.”

“Not if you tell him Michael’s real,” Calum points out.

“Oh, I would,” Luke says, eyes widening in false apology, “but I’m not supposed to _ meddle _ in stuff anymore.” 

“_Luke!” _

“Listen, I’ll be doing you a _ favour_. How much can he hang off your ass if he’s in mine, right?”

Calum considers this for a moment.

“Fine,” he says eventually. “But I don’t want to be around for it.”

“Deal,” Luke says, holding out his hand for Calum to shake. Calum doesn’t take it.

“And if you die for some reason, I take no responsibility.” 

“Absolutely. Tell my parents I died happy.” 

“And if you break any of my stuff, you’re paying for it. Both of you. Somehow.”

“Of course,” Luke agrees, very seriously.

“I mean it, Luke,” Calum warns, finally grasping Luke’s hand in a quick shake. “If there’s even _ one _ stain on my couch, you’re banned for life.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Luke says. He downs the rest of his mimosa and claps his hands together.

“Right,” he says. “Point me in the direction of your problem.”

*****

Of course, once they’re back at Calum’s place, Michael is nowhere to be found.

“Michael?” Calum calls out cautiously. He’s met with silence.

“Maybe you _ are _ going crazy,” Luke suggests, kicking his shoes off haphazardly.

“_You _ were the one who contacted him in the first place, Luke,” Calum points out. “I’m not going crazy, he’s around here somewhere. Put your shoes away.”

Luke does as he’s told. 

An hour passes. Two. 

They play video games until Luke tosses the controller away from him and sighs.

“I’m starting to think we made the whole thing up, Cal,” he says, dropping his head to Calum’s shoulder. Calum shakes his head, glancing at the clock.

“He’s never left me alone this long, though.” 

He’s not _ worried_. He’s not.

“Can’t you just like. _ Make _ him appear or something?” Luke suggests, sounding kind of moody.

“Yes!” Calum yelps, jolting upright. Luke squawks indignantly at the sudden jostle, but Calum’s already on his feet, sprinting to the kitchen. He finds some leftover snacks in the cupboard, a roll of duct tape, and some beer from his fridge. He comes back to the living room where Luke is still sitting on the couch, looking confused. 

“Calum, what -,”

“One sec,” Calum says, dropping everything into a pile on the floor. He grabs the nearest video game and throws it into the pile, too, and then, using the duct tape, starts to make a circle on the floor.

“Calum,” Luke says again, more insistently. “_What _ are you doing?” 

“Summoning my demon,” Calum says. The circle of tape is a little wonky, but he kind of feels like it fits, considering who it’s for.

“Oh,” Luke says. “Should I get some candles or something?”

They get it set up, a pentagram made of tape between the couch and the TV. There’s a candle at each point, the leftover ones from the first time they contacted Michael, and Calum puts down his offerings. For the fourth point, he considers for a moment, before grabbing one of the cactuses from his windowsill. 

“And the fifth one?” Luke asks. Calum looks at him pointedly.

“Oh, I see. I’m an _ offering_. Like a piece of meat,” Luke says waspishly. He sits down anyway.

Only then does it occur to Calum that he doesn’t actually know what to do now. The movies he’s watched with Michael tend to not go into too much detail about the particular method. Everyone says a bunch of stuff in Latin and the demons appear. 

Calum doesn’t know any Latin. He knows a handful of words in Spanish, maybe.

“What now?” Luke says, as if he’s reading Calum’s mind.

“Um,” Calum says. He’ll just have to freestyle. “Michael? Can you join us please?”

Luke scoffs.

“You have to be more assertive, man,” he says. “It’s not a question.”

Calum tries again.

“Michael, I’m demanding your presence, for once.” He glances at Luke, who’s making motions for him to continue, mouthing _ more. _ “I’m summoning the demon, colloquially known as Michael, who hasn’t left me alone for the past five months, and he’s gonna get his ass in this pentagram _ immediately _ or I’m exorcising him out of my life.”

There’s a deafening _ crack_, like the initial clap of thunder, and the whole room fills with a flash of bright light and smoke. For one second, Calum panics and thinks there’s an electric fire - but the smoke clears slightly, and there’s Michael, standing in the dead centre of the pentagram, looking somewhat amused.

“There you are,” Calum says, exasperated. Maybe a little relieved. Just a little.

“Not too shabby,” Michael says, tracing the lines of the pentagram with the toe of the Converse he’s wearing. “Your speech was kind of weird and a bit _ rude_, but honestly, for a first summon? Pretty good. I like the cactus. I like the tape, too. Nice and efficient. Carpet friendly.”

“Thanks,” Calum says. “Nice appearance, man. You scared the shit out of me for a second there.”

“Well, you know,” Michael shrugs with a hint of pride. “I don’t get to flex every day.”

“Wow,” a third voice says, and Calum remembers why they’re doing this whole thing to begin with. He glances down to where Luke is still sitting, cross-legged on the floor, staring up at Michael with an awe-struck look on his face.

“Oh, right,” Calum says. “Michael, this is my friend Luke. Luke, this is the demon who terrorizes my life.”

“Oh, hey,” Michael says. Calum wants to roll his eyes at the casual way he says it. He holds out a hand for Luke to shake and Luke takes it, still looking somewhat lost for words. They don’t immediately let go.

“Wow,” Luke says again, a bit more breathlessly. Calum wonders if he should just leave now. Luke has a look in his eye that can’t mean anything good for any surface of the house.

“Anyway,” Calum says loudly, breaking the weirdly tense silence. “Now you’ve met. I’m going to order a pizza and we’ll… I don’t know, get to know each other. Or something.” 

That gets Michael’s attention again.

“Can you get extra cheese? And pepperoni? And -,”

He pauses for a second to look back at Luke, who’s still on the floor. 

“Do you like jalapenos?” he asks.

“Yeah, I like jalapenos,” Luke says, which is a _ lie_, but it makes Michael happy. 

“And jalapenos,” he adds, grinning.

“Okay,” Calum says, pulling his phone out. “I can do that. Luke, get up,” he adds, and Luke scrambles to his feet, looking a little embarrassed. Calum leaves them to go order the pizza in the kitchen.

He can hear Michael and Luke talking in the living room, Luke’s laughter and Michael’s excitable voice. He’s not _ jealous_, exactly. Nobody would appreciate being third wheeled in their own living room, Calum concludes. It’s not because he used to have Michael to himself, and now he’s sharing with Luke. Sharing in a big way, too, if the creepily intense way they stare at each other is anything to go by. At the very least, the pizza will be a buffer zone that will give Calum some time to figure out where he’s going to go tonight, he thinks. 

He is wrong. 

“So Calum tells me you can make things move like, telekinetically,” Luke says, taking a bite out of his pizza. The melted cheese strings over his fingers, and he deliberately sucks them clean, looking at Michael the entire time. Calum rolls his eyes. Michael grins. 

“I can do way more than that,” he says. He snaps his fingers once, and the candles on the mantelpiece light up.

“Wow,” Luke says, looking around. The overhead light dims to a low orange glow. Something moves in the corner of Calum’s eye, and when he looks to see what it is, he notices large flecks of white drifting down outside his window.

“Did you just make it fucking _ snow_?” he says loudly. He doesn’t know whether to be impressed or disgusted.

“Just that window,” Michael says casually. Luke smiles softly when he sees it.

“It’s like a movie,” he says quietly. Michael scoots a little closer, and Luke’s smile turns a little more wicked.

“You like it?” Michael asks, and Calum can see that his eyes have darkened to completely black.

“Yeah, I do.”

“You wanna see what else I can do?”

“Okay,” Calum interrupts, getting up. “I’m leaving.”

“Okay,” Luke says, not looking at him, and Calum decides then and there that they are no longer friends. 

***

“So I know this was a no-questions-asked favour,” Ashton says, forty minutes later, “but how come you had to leave your place in the middle of the night and stay here?”

They’re watching TV in Ashton’s bed, sharing some ice cream that Calum dug out from the very back of Ashton’s freezer, insisting that it was a strict necessity, under the circumstances. Calum sucks on his spoon, vying for time.

“I don’t know if you’d believe me if I said it, to be honest,” he admits.

“Try me,” Ashton says, giving him a gentle nudge. Calum looks at him, at his kind expression and the soft dimples in his cheeks, and despairs.

“There was a gas leak?” he tries weakly. Ashton sighs.

“Okay,” he says, patting Calum’s knee. “I won’t make you talk about it if you don’t want to. Whatever it is, I hope it’s resolved.”

“Thanks,” Calum says, and means it. He loves that Ashton doesn’t pry. Any time he needs a no-questions-asked favour, he’s always known Ashton will be there for him. What a friend, Calum thinks warmly to himself.

“It’s not that demon shit again, is it?” 

Or maybe not.

“Uh,” Calum says, and Ashton whips around to stare him down. 

“_I__s _ it that demon shit again?” he demands.

“I - maybe?”

“_Calum _ -,” 

“Ash, I _ said _ you wouldn’t believe me,” Calum points out.

“Yeah, because it’s _ stupid_,” Ashton says, and Calum has to agree with him on that.

“Look, ask Luke tomorrow. He’ll tell you about Michael. He’ll tell you more than I can, probably.”

“You’ve got _ Luke _ in on this game?”

“Ask him!” Calum all but shouts.

“I will! I’ll ask him right now!” Ashton yells back. “Give me my phone, I’ll call him.” 

“He won’t _ answer _ his phone,” Calum snaps, unplugging Ashton’s phone from the charger and handing it over. Ashton angrily stabs in his passcode. “Since Michael’s probably blowing his back out as we speak.”

Ashton doesn’t answer. Instead, he shoots Calum a glare and presses Luke’s phone number. Calum crosses his arms across his chest and fumes, listening to the muffled sound of a dial tone on the other end of the line. Luke’s probably ruining his kitchen counters by now.

“He’s not picking up,” Ashton snaps after a few moments. He hangs up the call.

“I told you,” Calum mutters.

“Calum, seriously, this is going too far.”

“I know!” Calum says, exasperated. “It’s ridiculous! Like, I have to bring _ Luke _ in as a distraction just so I can have one night to myself! And then I get sexiled from my own house!”

Ashton puts his face in his hands and groans. He stays like that for a few seconds. Calum knows he’s getting a handle on his frustration, counting to ten so he can stay calm. When he comes back up, he takes the ice cream carton out of Calum’s lap and drops it on his nightstand, and then puts both his hands on Calum’s shoulders, turning him so they’re facing each other.

“Calum, I want you to look at me when I say this,” he says, so seriously that Calum nods and meets his eye. “There is no such thing as demons. You do not have a demon in your house. You never have. Do you understand that?” 

Ashton’s hands feel very warm and secure on Calum’s shoulders, and Ashton’s speaking very firmly, like he’s talking to a naughty kid. Calum looks at his face, and can read him as well as he ever could.

“It scares you, doesn’t it?” Calum says softly, understanding. “The idea of demons and stuff. You don’t believe me because you’re scared of them.”

Ashton misses a beat.

“I’m not scared,” he says, too quickly - so fakely nonchalant that Calum starts to smile.

“You _ are!_” he grins. “Look, don’t be scared of Michael. He’s annoying, but he’s not evil. If you meet him you’ll see what I mean.” 

Ashton stares at him for a few more seconds.

“You… you’re not playing with me?” he says in a very small voice.

“I’m not losing it, either. It’s real, Ash. Whether you want it to be or not.”

Ashton takes a deep breath.

“If this is some kind of joke -.”

“It’s _ not_,” Calum insists. “Michael is a demon who haunts my house, and he’s been trying to get at Luke for ages, only I wouldn’t let him, so he started going to me instead. So I introduced them to get the heat off me.”

“What do you mean, ‘he said he liked Luke’?” Ashton says. He looks pale. “Does it - does he _ talk _ to you?” 

“Incessantly,” Calum says. “Do you want some water? You look a little green.”

“How?” Ashton asks faintly.

“Like, you’re so pale right now you kind of look a little -,”

“No,” Ashton interrupts. He swallows hard. “How does he. Talk to you. Michael.” 

“Oh. He just talks. With his mouth. He looks like a regular guy.”

A regular guy with very pretty eyes that turn black when he’s hot for someone, apparently, Calum does not say, because Ashton looks like he might have a panic attack.

“Okay, but like. How do you _ know _ he’s a demon? How do you know he isn’t just some random guy who broke into your house?” Ashton sounds somehow both victorious and desperate.

“He appears in a pentagram if you summon him, Ash,” Calum says. Ashton deflates.

“Oh.”

“Hey,” Calum says gently, bumping their shoulders together. “It’s okay, Ashton. He’s not a bad guy, honest.”

“He’s a literal _ demon_.” 

“I mean, yeah,” Calum says, “but he also made me breakfast the other morning. And he’s really fun to hang out with, actually. We’ve been having a lot of movie nights and stuff, and he’ll cuddle even though I don’t think he can technically sleep.” 

“Are you _ dating _ this fucking demon, or something?” Ashton snaps, apparently resurfacing. Calum splutters.

“What? _ No! _ We’re just friends, Ash. Friends _ hang out_. What the hell. _ Luke’s _ the one he has a crush on.”

_ He’s only been friends with me for this long to get at Luke_, Calum also does not say. 

He doesn’t care, either, for the record. Let it be known that Michael Whatever from Hell can sleep with the entire human population before he shows any interest in Calum, and he, Calum, couldn’t give less of a damn.

“This is insane,” Ashton declares, to nobody in particular.

“You get used to it,” Calum says. “We should put that ice cream back in the freezer, it’s melting.”

“You do it,” Ashton says. “I’m having an existential crisis.”

Calum gets up, figuring it’s the least he could do. As he drops their used spoons into the dishwasher, he feels like this whole thing could have definitely gone worse. Yes, Ashton may need a day or a year to recover, but at least both of Calum’s best friends believe him now. Not that Luke needed any persuading at all.

Calum’s stomach twists uncomfortably at the thought of Luke and Michael, and at first he can’t place why. He’s nervous, he decides. Nervous that Michael’s going to leave and move in with Luke, instead. Nervous that somebody’s going to get hurt.

Nervous that, knowing Calum’s luck, it’s going to be him.

****

In retrospect, Calum doesn’t really know why he thought that introducing Luke to Michael would make his life easier. He should really have known, after all this time, that letting Luke have his way when he’s horny and bored can only lead to complications. What a fool he has been, he thinks. What a fool he continues to be.

“Has he like, _ said _ anything, though?” Michael pushes, for what feels like the hundredth time that week. “About me? Anything at all?”

“It’s three in the morning, Michael, _ go away_.”

“You weren’t sleeping,” Michael says. “This is my best time of the night, I’m at my most powerful and intelligent right now. You can masturbate any time. What’s Luke said?”

“Are you powerful and intelligent enough to leave me alone for ten minutes?” Calum snaps, pulling his hands out from under his covers. He knows what the answer is going to be, anyway.

“No,” Michael says, sitting back on his haunches on the other side of the bed. “But by all means, don’t let me stop you. You can multitask, right?”

_ No_, Calum thinks very firmly to himself, even as his cock gives a hopeful twitch. The idea of Michael watching him finish himself off makes his stomach hurt a little, in ways he’s not going to think too hard about right now. He sighs.

“Luke hasn’t said anything to me,” he says dully. Annoyingly, thinking about Luke isn’t doing anything to kill his boner, either. He keeps getting images of Luke smiling with a new hickey blooming clearly just under the collar of his shirt, waltzing into Calum’s living room like he owns it. The weird tension between the three of them when they’re all together, like Calum’s interfering on something he didn’t even mean to be a part of.

He tries thinking about the paneling in his ceiling instead. That helps, a little.

“Okay, but we had sex for literal _ hours _ yesterday. Like you know when you think you’re done but then you’re like, still touching and kissing and it just kinda turns into marathon sex? He made me come so many times I think I broke something, dude. Did you know Luke has a vibrator?”

Calum manages some kind of strangled response. His cock is throbbing against his belly, a dull pulsing ache that’s taking up most of his brain capacity. He didn’t know he could be talked into it like this, but apparently Michael talking about him and Luke like that is really doing something for him.

He can’t think of a worse time to learn this about himself.

“You think that means anything?” Michael says.

“What?” Calum asks distantly, still staring at the ceiling, like that’s going to help him now. It’s taking an awful lot of effort to not keep touching himself, despite his audience. Maybe because of his audience.

“The fucking,” his audience says. There’s a drip of honey in his voice, like he knows exactly what’s going on. Of course he does. He always seems to be at least one step ahead. “It’s transcendent. I literally just came here from his place and I want him again. You think that means anything?” 

Calum swallows hard, trying to find his words.

“I think it means you’re a horny little fuck,” he manages, going for bravado. His voice is a little too uneven for it to be believable. “Both of you.”

“Yeah,” Michael says softly. Calum chances a glance at him. He’s exactly where he was before: sitting back on his heels at the foot of the bed, his hands in his lap, staring at Calum intently, almost thoughtfully. It makes Calum want to squirm, so he sits up instead.

“Go back to him then, if you want him so bad,” he says, with absolutely no heat. The corners of Michael’s mouth twitch into a little smile.

“In a bit,” he says, and then languidly unfolds himself to crawl across the bed. He gets Calum’s knees between his own, and says, “I haven’t hung out with you properly in ages.” 

“You wanna hang out right now?” Calum asks weakly. Michael shifts closer, like a hunting cat.

“You don’t want to?”

“It’s late,” Calum tries. Michael’s so close they could kiss.

“You’re not sleeping.”

“I could be.”

“Hey Calum?” Michael says quietly, barely louder than a whisper.

“What?”

“Wanna bang?”

There’s a split second where Calum feels like his heart leaps a couple of inches in his chest, where he’s looking at Michael’s playful little smile and dark eyes and thinks he’s going to say yes.

He doesn’t. He’s not that stupid.

“Fuck off,” he grumbles, shoving Michael’s shoulder. Michael sits back and grins.

“Worth a shot,” he says, and disappears with the usual _ pop_.

Calum lets out a groan and collapses backwards into his pillows. He stares up at nothing for a minute, noting the thud of his heartbeat and the way his whole body feels tight and wired. Noting the way he feels like nothing’s going to kill his boner, ever.

It’s a conscious decision to let himself think about it, when he drops his hand back down to cup his dick through his underwear. Conscious, and only slightly guilty. He can’t really distinguish the thoughts of him and Michael from the thoughts of Michael and Luke, but he thinks about golden curls and the little whimpering cries he’s heard through the walls sometimes, of green eyes flickering into black, of _ I just came here from his place and I want him again_, and comes in a breathless rush all over his stomach, fucking into his own hand.

“Shit,” he gasps, panting in the dark. “Fuck. Okay.”

He gingerly touches the mess on his belly, wondering what disposable items of clothing he has within reach to clean up with. He’s sweating a little, his limbs so heavy he feels like he’s moving through water. He still feels wired, but muted. It’s manageable now.

He cleans up with the first shirt he pulls off the floor, and tosses it back off the bed. His head is still reeling with thoughts of imaginary Michael and Luke, and he worries a little that it’s not the last time they’re going to make an appearance like that.

This is all Luke’s fault. If Luke hadn’t contacted Michael in the first place, Calum wouldn’t be having weird fantasies about either of them.

It was circumstantial, he decides. It’s fine.

He barely wakes up to the soft snap and the sudden dip in the bed.

“Sorry, I tried to be quiet,” Michael whispers, so softly that Calum could be dreaming. He feels a warm body tuck itself in behind him, resting a hand on his chest, nuzzling into the back of his neck.

“You should really stop sleeping alone when you don’t have to,” the dreamy voice says. 

_ You’re the one leaving_, Calum thinks about telling him. _ I didn’t choose it. I didn’t choose you at all. _

He takes Michael’s hand and falls asleep.

****

“Consider it an intervention,” Luke is saying, leaning back into Ashton’s couch. “It’s been months and months. Calum’s known him for ages. He’s a generous and thoughtful person-,” 

“Person?” Calum interrupts. Luke waves a dismissive hand.

“Whatever. He’s nice. He’s funny. He’s hot. He’s in our lives now, whether you like it or not. You need to get over your weird fear and hang out with Michael.” 

Luke and Calum both look at Ashton expectantly. Ashton’s sitting low in his armchair, one hand on each armrest like he’s expecting it to try to buck him off. He’s looking wearily from Calum to Luke and back again.

“You _ sure _ he doesn’t have some kind of insidious agenda?” Ashton asks. “How do you know he’s not just going to possess both of you?”

“Why would he?” Luke says. “Like, no offense, Ashton, but none of us really have a life worth possessing.”

Ashton still looks unconvinced. Calum has a try.

“The longer you put it off the weirder it’s going to get,” he points out. “He’s going to catch on that you’re scared.”

“I’m not _ scared_,” Ashton insists, and Luke snorts. Ashton glares at him. “Not anymore. I’m just being careful.”

“Plus, you’ll literally never see Luke anymore if you don’t make your peace with Michael,” Calum continues, as if Ashton hadn’t spoken.

“Hey!” Luke says.

“I’ve become your professional third wheel and you know it,” Calum snaps, and Luke looks a little sheepish. “Don’t leave me hanging out on my own like this, Ash.”

He can see Ashton’s resolve starting to crumble. He knows Luke can see it, too.

“You’ll like him,” Luke says. “I do.” 

Ashton looks helplessly between them, and Calum knows they’ve won.

“I’ll think about it,” he says. Luke catches Calum’s eye and gives him a victorious little smile. Calum smiles back, even though there’s something in his chest that constricts uncomfortably. 

_ You’ll like him. I do_.

****

21:29

From: Ashton F. Irwin

To: CTH

Subject: Demonic Entity

Dear Calum, 

I have decided after careful and deliberate consideration that I would like to introduce myself to the demon you say haunts your house. Since he and Luke are apparently A Thing now, I think it’s only fair that I get to meet him too.

I am putting my personal feelings about hellish beings aside, and am ready to meet him whenever you see fit. 

Best, 

Ashton.

*****

21:52

From: CTH

To: Ashton F. Irwin

Subject: RE: Demonic Entity

Why the fuck are you emailing me. Just text me like a normal person. You have me on speed dial.

****

21:58

From: Ashton F. Irwin

To: CTH

Subject: RE: RE: Demonic Entity

My phone is in a bag of rice.

**** 

22:26

From: CTH

To: Ashton F. Irwin

Subject: RE: RE: RE: Demonic Entity

Lol why?? Also just summon him if you wanna meet him that badly. He likes snacks and beer. And Depeche Mode.

****

22:34

From: Ashton F. Irwin

To: CTH

Subject: RE: RE: RE: RE: Demonic Entity

Nvm why.

Ok I’ll try summon him. It won’t b scary right??

****

22:45

From: Ashton F. Irwin

To: CTH

Subject: RE: RE: RE: RE: Demonic Entity

I was googling stuff about demons and a car outside backfired and it scared me so badly i dropped my phone in the toilet. Don’t tell him that pls it’s embarrassing 

****

“Michael,” Calum calls to the seemingly empty house. He’s not sure he’s going to get a response. It’s a bit of a gamble, these days. “Ashton’s going to summon you.”

It’s quiet for long enough that Calum thinks Michael must not be around. He’s already making an effort not to be upset by it when there’s a pop in the corner of the room.

“Is he the one who doesn’t think I’m real?” Michael asks. Calum doesn’t look up from his phone.

“He believes in you now,” he says. The couch jostles when Michael throws himself down on it and looks at the emails over Calum’s shoulder.

“That’s cute,” Michael says. “I like being believed in. I like Ashton.”

“Don’t get any ideas,” Calum warns, finally looking at him. “Is that my shirt?”

“Luke took mine,” Michael dismisses. “And I don’t know what you mean. I don’t have any ideas. He’s scared of me?” 

“Yeah,” Calum says, looking back at his phone. “But don’t tell him I told you.”

“Want me to fuck with him a little?” Michael says, grinning. “I could like, set his cupboards on fire or something.”

“Don’t set his stuff on fire.”

“I’ll put it out before it does more than singe it, I promise. Come on, let me mess with him.”

“No!”

“You’re no fun,” Michael pouts. He drops his cheek to Calum’s shoulder. “Fine. I’ll be nice.”

“Good,” Calum says. “And tell Luke he still owes me for the pizza the other day.”

“Why don’t you tell him?”

“Because you’ll see him in like ten minutes, probably,” Calum says, and he’s not bitter about it. “He takes three business days to answer texts.”

“I can stay if you want,” Michael hums, softly nuzzling into the crook of Calum’s neck. “There’s enough of me to go around, you know.”

“You’re pushing it,” Calum says, shrugging him off. “I’m gonna call your bluff one of these days.”

“I fuckin’ wish you would,” Michael says, and gives Calum’s shoulder a playful bite. “That’s the whole _ point_. I’ll talk to Luke, if you’re gonna be weird and not text him.” 

“I’m not being weird.”

“Whatever, Calum. I’ll see you later. I’ll even wear something nice to meet your man in.”

Calum doesn’t even argue that one. A weight lifts off the couch beside him, and Michael’s gone.

****

“I’m sorry,” Calum says incredulously into his phone. “You did _ what?_”

It’s less than a full twenty-four hours later. Less than a full _ day._

“I might have. We may have hooked up.”

Calum stares at the wall in front of him, not seeing it.

“Or, not may have,” Ashton backpedals. He sounds a little panicked. “Like, we did. We fully had sex. Am I going - is there like. Am I going to die now? Because he’s - you know.”

Calum has trouble gathering his words, for a good couple of seconds.

“I can’t believe you,” is all he can manage to get out. “How did this even _ happen?_”

“I don’t _ know_, Calum!” Ashton says, sounding desperate. “He just kind of - I summoned him, like you said - Luke told me what to say-,”

Of course, Calum thinks. Luke, the meddling little brat.

“- and we just talked for ages, and then it just - happened. He’s cute, Cal,” he adds, like he needs a justification, and Calum takes pity on him. A little.

“I mean. It could happen to anybody,” he says, as matter-of-factly as he can, as if anyone could just… trip and fall, straight onto a demonic dick.

“I don’t know why I’m getting so weird about it,” Ashton says, and he sounds kind of moody now. “It’s not like it’s going to become a _ thing_, or whatever. It’s probably never going to happen again.” 

“I dunno, Ash,” Calum says doubtfully. “Michael’s a pretty horny guy. It might happen again.”

“Gosh, thanks. I’m a side-piece for a demon.”

“That’s not what I meant,” Calum sighs, even though he’s not exactly sure _ what _ he meant. “Anyway. Was it - any good?” 

“I’m - the sex?” Ashton sounds surprised. “Yeah? Why?”

“Never mind,” Calum says quickly, and then pauses. “Or. Was it. Like, _ how _ good?” 

“What, you want like a scale from one to ten, or something?”

“No! Just.” Calum shifts uncomfortably. It almost feels like he’s opening a can of worms that would be better left alone. “In one word, maybe.”

Ashton hesitates. This should not be a turn on, Calum thinks. There’s nothing sexy about this conversation at all. 

And yet.

“Intense,” Ashton says at last. Calum shuts his eyes for a second.

“Did his eyes go black?” he asks, as lightly as he can. Out of curiosity.

“Yeah,” Ashton says, and his voice sounds a little tight, too. “Yeah, and he like - he’s fucking strong, Cal. I have bruises.”

“That’s -,” _ hot_, “- cool.” Calum swallows hard. “Cool. Okay. Well. I’m glad you guys had a good time. Uh. I have to go, Ash, I have to do - things.”

Can: open. Worms: everywhere. So many worms. Why did he do this to himself.

“Yeah,” Ashton says distantly. “Okay. Talk to you later, Cal.” 

“Bye,” Calum says, and hangs up. He stares into the distance for a second, before abruptly standing up, running a slightly panicked hand through his hair. He needs to do something, right now. Something boring and monotonous that won’t make him start thinking about _ Ashton _ and Michael. Or maybe just Michael. Or just Ashton. Fuck. 

“Okay,” he says out loud, and aimlessly makes his way to the kitchen.

He does his dishes. It helps. Gross two-day old food stuck to plates will kill the mood in almost any situation. And, once he’s done with his dishes, he figures he might as well keep doing gross, tedious things, because his place is a mess. His trash needs to be taken out. His fridge needs a purge. He’s not nursing a semi, he’s fine. What worms?

Calum finds himself in a spotless home, a few odd hours later. He has a handful of texts on his phone - one from Ashton asking if everything’s okay, and five chain-messages from Luke asking if he’s free right now, each one with an increasingly whiny tone. He ignores all of them, deciding it’s probably best for his sanity to not look any of his friends in the eye right now. Or in the face. Or at them in general. 

He needs another distraction.

He watches a movie, two episodes of The Office, and an Earth documentary, and decides he’s maybe tired enough to go to sleep without thinking too much. He’s been productive and on his feet for most of the day; theoretically, he should be lights out the moment he shuts his eyes. Theoretically.

He sighs, turning over for what feels like the millionth time. His whole body feels tense and uncomfortable, like his bed doesn’t belong to him, and he kicks off his pajamas to lessen the stifling feeling. It doesn’t really help. All it really does is make it easier to reach down and push down on his dick - just to relieve some of the pressure. 

Except that alone makes him let out a long, shaky breath, and he thinks - fuck it. Whatever. He thinks about Michael - Michael’s mouth, his hands, the bruises he knows Ashton’s pushing his own fingers into. He gives himself a long stroke, tugging slowly from the base of his cock up to the head, and pauses. 

It seems… unfair, really. That he’s the only one who _ hasn’t _fucked Michael. Michael lived with him first, didn’t he? He picked Calum first. They’ve shared this bed more times than Calum can count. He lies still for a second, his cock warm and heavy in his hand. The idea of just giving in and getting himself off gets more tempting with each passing minute, but - if he’s going to do this, he’s going to do it properly. Calum’s never been one to half-ass things.

He sits up, anticipation twisting in his stomach.

“Hey, Michael,” he calls softly. There’s a snap, and the air fills with a light electricity, like static. Michael appears at the foot of the bed. He’s wearing his usual black get up, but left out the hat, this time. Calum can see that his hair curls slightly, and the sight of it softens something in his chest.

“What’s up?” Michael asks, even though Calum knows he already knows. He wouldn’t have gotten here so fast, otherwise. His eyes drop down Calum’s naked body, down to where he’s still lightly fisting his own dick, and Calum sees his eyes blow out to black. He looks stupidly hot, kind of scary, and Calum has to tighten his grip on himself.

“Want a hand with that?” Michael asks, his voice low. Calum blushes, feeling kind of dazed.

“I was thinking about you,” he says, feeling suddenly very exposed in contrast to how clothed Michael still is. He likes it. Michael drops down onto the bed, slowly crawling over.

“I know,” he says. He’s moving like a cat, like a panther. “I could hear it. You’ve been thinking about me for a while.”

Calum figures there’s no sense in lying, at this point.

“Yeah,” he breathes. Michael’s so close now, sidling in between Calum’s knees and running his hands up his thighs.

“Not just me, though, right?” Calum swallows hard, his lips parting. “You should have said something, Cal.”

Michael bats Calum’s hand away and takes over, stroking Calum’s dick slow enough to make his toes curl. He shuts his eyes against it, trying to stop himself from fucking into Michael’s hand. He feels Michael lean in, nuzzling his mouth against Calum’s cheek. It’s a sweet gesture, but everything feels electric, like static, and Calum doesn’t have it in him to relax right now.

“You know they thought about you, too?” Michael breathes against his neck, and Calum whimpers, squirming a little, opening his eyes to watch. “Luke loves thinking about you, did you know that? He’d get himself off on my dick, thinking about it. Talking me into it. Did you know he’s had a crush on Ashton for ages, too? You wouldn’t believe the shit he thinks about.”

Calum has to reach out and put a hand on Michael’s shoulder to steady himself. He’s so hard he feels dizzy, barely even able to register what Michael’s saying. He knows Michael’s sweater is soft, that Michael’s still so warm he feels feverish, that Michael’s hand feels so good on his cock that he’s probably only going to be able to enjoy it for a few minutes.

“Ash thinks about you _ all _the time,” Michael continues, speeding up his pace a little, twisting on the upstroke. Calum can’t help the noise he’s making now, biting back moans so he can hear Michael talking. “Fuck, you sound good, Cal. I’ve been waiting for you to call me for this.”

“Tell me about Ash,” Calum pants. He wants to come so fucking badly he could scream, and thinking about Ashton is only making it worse. Michael touches their foreheads together and grins.

“Ask him yourself,” he says. “He’s obsessed with you. He’s probably in the shower right now, beating off thinking about you.”

“Fuck off,” Calum groans weakly. He can’t look Michael in the eye, not when they’re blown black, like galaxies, and he definitely can’t look at how his cock is leaking all over Michael’s fist, so he focuses on Michael’s mouth instead. This also proves to be a mistake. His lips are red and soft, and in the middle of everything, Calum thinks - 

“You can kiss me, if you like,” Michael hums. “I wanna taste it when you come.”

“Oh, fuck,” Calum breathes. Michael kisses him softly, and Calum can’t tell if that’s what does it or if it’s Michael talking, but he feels like he comes with his whole body, grabbing Michael’s arm as he shudders through it. There’s come on the front of Michael’s hoodie, and all over his hand. Calum feels a bit bad for the mess. Mostly he doesn’t care. 

“Sorry,” he says anyway, once he catches his breath again. Michael shakes his head and kisses him again, a full on makeout that pushes Calum gently back onto the bed, into his pillows. Calum feels pleasantly fuzzy, lazy even while he helps Michael out of his gross clothes.

“You’re hot as fuck, Cal,” Michael says against his mouth, and Calum smiles, taking the compliment this time. He takes Michael’s cock in his hand, lazily rubbing his thumb over the head, grinning when it makes Michael curse.

“You should fuck me,” he says, pressing another kiss to Michael’s cheek. “Like, properly.”

“I was gonna,” Michael grunts. He’s absently thrusting into Calum’s hand, and despite how good it sounds to let Michael pound him into the mattress, letting him come all over Calum’s chest is also tempting as fuck. Calum’s not even sure he could go again right now, even if he tried.

“Fuck me in the morning,” he hums, absently rubbing his thumb over Michael’s bottom lip. Michael bites at it gently, and then sucks, and Calum thinks he could _ maybe _get it up again. In like an hour or two. Maybe Michael will wake him up for it. He starts jerking him off with purpose, reveling in the hurt little noises Michael keeps letting out.

“However you want,” Michael breathes, kissing Calum’s open palm. “I’ll do anything for you.”

“Come on me,” Calum asks softly. It’s almost begging, looking up and meeting his eye, and Calum feels a punch of tenderness in his chest that only has a little bit to do with how Michael does what he’s asked, dropping his head and coming with a low moan. It hits Calum’s stomach and chest, warm and wet, and they both stay still for a moment, breathing. Calum’s mouth feels a little dry.

“Fuck,” Michael says wetly, lifting his head again. His eyes are back to green, bleary and soft and so human that Calum can’t stop smiling at him.

“You’re three for three,” Calum says. “Good job.”

Michael looks down at the mess he’s made. He absently runs his fingers through it, spreading his own come around on Calum’s skin, like he’s painting. 

“Wasn’t about that,” he says after a while, meeting Calum’s eyes again. “I promise. I really like you.”

“Pass me that shirt,” Calum says, pointing to his laundry pile. Michael reaches off the bed and hands it to him.

“I’m serious, Cal,” he says, watching Calum clean himself up. “Like, at first I was just here because I heard you a couple of times, and you seemed cool. But the past couple of months, it’s been… I don’t know. You guys are like my friends, now.”

“I can’t just be your friend, Michael,” Calum says, ignoring the gentle ache in his heart. “You can’t make someone come like that and then just say you’re friends.”

“That’s what I’ve been _ trying _ to tell you!” Michael says, exasperated. “You kept throwing me off! I don’t know how humans like, do this shit. Every time I tried, you turned me down.”

Calum stares.

“I thought you were just hard up for anything that moved,” he says stupidly. In retrospect, it seems kind of obvious. Damn it. 

“I mean, yeah. But you guys especially. I dunno, you’re all just… I really like all of you.”

“I like you too,” Calum says, surprising himself with his honesty. Maybe he’s just like this, post-fuck. Michael gives him a shy grin, which Calum returns, and then they’re kissing again, lazily making out in a clean part of the bed. Michael kisses so nicely, Calum thinks. He could really get used to it.

They end up cuddled together with Michael’s face pressed into Calum’s shoulder, running his hand up over Calum’s hip and waist, all the way up to his shoulder and down again. Calum’s nearly asleep when Michael asks, “What are you gonna do about Luke and Ash?”

Calum snorts.

“Figure it out, I guess,” he says sleepily. “I feel like that was going to happen anyway.”

“They really love you a lot,” Michael says gently, pressing a kiss to Calum’s shoulder.

“I know,” Calum says. He means it; they’ve never, not once, given him reason to doubt it. He thinks about Ashton and Luke, and Michael, and the possibility of the four of them together. He’ll call them tomorrow, he thinks. They’ll meet up for brunch and he can… propose. He’ll invite Michael, too. He doesn’t even know if demons can go out to brunch. Whatever. They’ll have brunch here. So long as it’s all of them.

It’s a happy thought to fall asleep to.


End file.
